Ted Talk Thursday | Why Our Screens Make Us Less Happy by Adam Alter

I’ve been considering my “screen time” a lot of late. I’m aware that when I wake up, my phone is the first thing I reach out for; before I go to sleep, I am texting Himself and my friends. Often when I wake during the night, instead of simply checking the time and going back to sleep, I’ll scroll through Instagram and have a look at peoples stories on Snapchat. We spend so much time on our phones. We literally don’t know when to stop.

A friend and I were talking about this last week and she said that she genuinely feels addicted to her phone, and I can honestly say I am right there with her. She has gone and bought herself a good old fashioned alarm clock, and is leaving her phone in another room at night. I think I’m going to do the same. I am also going to look into any apps that might be around that don’t allow you access social media apps for specific periods of time – do these exist? I’d love to not have a choice in the matter, if that makes sense?!

I’ve permanently deleted my Facebook account because I just started to hate it. I was spending endless amounts of my time scrolling through my news feed seeing things that I genuinely didn’t care about so at first I deactivated it, and when I realised that I was missing out on nothing, I permanently said goodbye. And, for those of you who might be wondering if I’ve had any regrets about that, I haven’t had a single one. In fact, I’m starting to wonder which social media platform will be the next to go…! I’ve a feeling it will be Snapchat because with the latest update, and because I’m so fond of Instagram, I think its next on the hit list!

I came across this Ted Talk last week – it was meant to be last week’s video but in the midst of Storm Emma my laptop was taken over by my dad who had to work from home and I didn’t see it for a few days. I found it really interesting to see statistics about our phone usage. Its kind of no wonder that we are becoming more and more depressed and anxious when we make such little time for the things that matter. Take a look at the video and let me know what you think in the comments below.

 

What steps will you take to reduce your screen time?

With love,